Dear Editor: On May 7 and 8, Pacific High School held our annual Spring Plant Sale fundraiser. The sun came out, and so did the community, purchasing student-grown seedlings to jumpstart gardens across this town. We felt your support, Sitka, and students were proud of their contribution to this community! If you missed us on Saturday, my apologies, we sold out of plants by Friday evening.
Proceeds from this fundraiser support Pacific High’s Farm to Table program, which provides hands-on lessons in growing and preparing healthy local foods. Currently, we’ve been busy planting veggies that will be used in school lunches districtwide next school year, including Lingít potatoes, planted by the little hands of Xóots kindergartners.
As the program has expanded, so has our volunteer base. We could not have pulled off a plant sale of this scale without Sam White, Raven Waltemyer, Grace Fujimoto, Carole Knuth, Suzan Brawnlyn, Marion Allen, Brenda Quevedo, Talia Chavarillo, Cassandra Branthoover, Gretchen Stelzenmueller, Iris and Marie, Mackenzie Aylor, Hope Merritt, Elisabeth Schafer, Barbara Tepee, Chandler O’Connell, Kylee Miguel and Caitlin Blaisdell.
Thanks also to Andrew Thoms for donating 20-plus gooseberry bushes to the sale. We really appreciate you, PHS garden volunteers!
One last thing – many of you may have noticed a beautiful new building in the Pacific High garden – the Learning Shelter, built from young growth spruce milled in Petersburg. We will be holding an open house in late September to celebrate the completion of this building, and the garden site as a whole. We’ll keep you posted!
On behalf of Pacific High School, a hearty Gunalchéesh!
Andrea Fraga
School Garden Coordinator
Pacific High School
